The binary arithmetic addition operator +
produces a pure value that is the sum of its operands. The arithmetic
+ operator may appear in an additive expression.
The arithmetic addition operator never throws an exception.

Here is an example that uses the arithmetic addition operator:

int addThree (int x, int y, int z) {
return x + y + z;
}

If the
type of either operand of + is a reference to
a String object, the operator is the string concatenation
operator, not the arithmetic addition operator. The string concatenation
operator is described in String Concatenation Operator +.

Otherwise, the
types of both operands of the arithmetic addition operator must
be arithmetic types, or a compile-time error occurs. The +
operator may perform type conversions on its operands:

If
either operand is of type double, the other operand
is converted to double and the operation produces
a double value.

Otherwise, if either
operand is of type float, the other operand is
converted to float and the operation produces
a float value.

Otherwise, if either
operand is of type long, the other operand is
converted to long and the operation produces
a long value.

Otherwise, both operands
are converted to int and the operation produces
an int value.

If the addition of
integer data overflows, the value produced by +
contains the low order bits of the sum and the sign of the value
is the opposite of the mathematically correct sign, due to the limitations
of the two's complement representation used for integer data.

The addition of floating-point data is governed by the following
rules:

If either operand is not-a-number (NaN), the
sum is NaN.

If one operand is positive infinity and
the other is negative infinity, the sum is NaN.

If both
of the operands are positive infinity, the sum is positive infinity.

If both of the operands are negative infinity, the
sum is negative infinity.

If one of the operands is
an infinity value and the other operand is a finite value, the sum
is the same infinity value as the operand.

If one operand is positive zero and the other is negative zero;
the sum is positive zero.

If both operands are positive zero, the sum is
positive zero.

If both operands are negative zero,
the sum is negative zero.

If neither operand is NaN
nor an infinity value, the sum is rounded to the nearest representable
value. If the magnitude of the sum is too large to be represented,
the operation overflows and an infinity value of the appropriate
sign is produced. If the magnitude of the sum is too small to be
represented, the operation underflows and a zero value of the appropriate
sign is produced.

The binary subtraction operator -
produces a pure value that is the difference between its operands;
it subtracts its right operand from its left operand. The arithmetic
- operator may appear in an additive expression.
The arithmetic subtraction operator never throws an exception.

Here is an example that uses the arithmetic subtraction operator:

int subThree (int x, int y, int z) {
return x - y - z;
}

The types
of both operands of the arithmetic subtraction operator must be
arithmetic types, or a compile-time error occurs. The -
operator may perform type conversions on its operands:

If
either operand is of type double, the other operand
is converted to double and the operation produces
a double value.

Otherwise, if either
operand is of type float, the other operand is
converted to float and the operation produces
a float value.

Otherwise, if either
operand is of type long, the other operand is
converted to long and the operation produces
a long value.

Otherwise, both operands
are converted to int and the operation produces
an int value.

For both integer and
floating-point data, a-b always produces the
same result as a-(+b).

If the subtraction
of integer data overflows, the value produced by -
contains the low order bits of the difference and the sign of the
value is the opposite of the mathematically correct sign, due to
the limitations of the two's complement representation used for
integer data.

The subtraction of floating-point data
is governed by the following rules:

If either operand
is not-a-number (NaN), the difference is NaN.

If the
left operand is positive infinity and the right operand is negative
infinity, the difference is positive infinity.

If the
left operand is negative infinity and the right operand is positive
infinity, the difference is negative infinity.

If both
operands are positive infinity, the difference is NaN.

If
both operands are negative infinity, the difference is NaN.

If the left operand is an infinity value and the right operand
is a finite value, the difference is the same infinity value as
the left operand.

If the left operand is a finite value
and the right argument is an infinity value, the difference is the
opposite infinity value of the right operand.

If both
operands are either positive zero or negative zero, the difference
is positive zero.

If the left operand is positive zero
and the right operand is negative zero, the difference is positive
zero.

If the left operand is negative zero and the
right operand is positive zero, the difference is negative zero.

If neither operand is NaN nor an infinity value, the difference
is rounded to the nearest representable value. If the magnitude
of the difference is too large to be represented, the operation
overflows and an infinity value of the appropriate sign is produced.
If the magnitude of the difference is too small to be represented,
the operation underflows and a zero value of the appropriate sign
is produced.

The string concatenation operator + produces
a pure value that is a reference to a String
object that it creates. The String
object contains the concatenation of the operands; the characters of the
left operand precede the characters of the right operand in the
newly created string. The string concatenation +
operator may appear in an additive expression.

Here
is an example of some code that uses the string concatenation operator:

If neither
operand of + is a reference to a String
object, the operator is the arithmetic addition operator, not the
string concatenation operator. Note that Java does not allow a program
to define overloaded operators. However, the language defines the
+ operator to have a meaning that is fundamentally
different from arithmetic addition if at least one of its operands
is a String object.

The way in which
Java decides if + means arithmetic addition or
string concatenation means that the use of parentheses can alter
the meaning of the + operator. Consider the following
code:

In the output
from this code, you can see that the addition of parentheses
changes the meaning of the last + from string
concatenation to arithmetic addition:

x = 3, y = 4
"??" + x + y ==> ??34
"??" + (x + y) ==> ??7

If one of the operands of
+ is a String object and the
other is not, the operand that is not a String object
is converted to one using the following rules:

If the operand is an object reference that is null,
it is converted to the string literal "null".

If the operand is a non-null reference
to an object that is not a string, the object's toString()
method is called. The result of the conversion is the string value
returned by the object's toString() method, unless
the return value is null, in which case the result
of the conversion is the string literal "null".
Since the Object class defines a
toString() method, every class in Java has such a method.

If the
type of the operand is char, the operand is converted
to a reference to a String object that has a
length of one and contains that character.

If the type
of the operand is an integer type other than char,
the operand is converted to a base 10 string representation of its
value. If the value is negative, the string value starts with a
minus sign; if it is positive there is no sign character. If the
value is zero, the result of the conversion is "0".
Otherwise, the string representation of the integer does not have
any leading zeros.

If the type of the operand is a floating-point
type, the exact string representation depends on the value being
converted. If the absolute value of d
is greater than or equal to 10^-3
or less than or equal to 10^7, it
is converted to a string with an optional minus sign (if the
value is negative) followed by up to eight digits
before the decimal point, a decimal point, and the necessary number
of digits after the decimal point (but no trailing zero if there is
more than one significant digit). There is always a minimum of
one digit after the decimal point.

Otherwise, the value is converted to a string with an optional
minus sign (if the value is negative), followed by a single digit,
a decimal point, the necessary number of digits after the decimal
point (but no trailing zero if there is more than one significant digit),
and the letter E followed by a plus or a minus
sign and a base 10 exponent of at least one digit. Again, there is always
a minimum of one digit after the decimal point.

In addition,
the values NaN, NEGATIVE_INFINITY,
POSITIVE_INFINITY, -0.0, and
+0.0 are represented by
the strings "NaN", "--Infinity",
"Infinity", "--0.0",
and "0.0", respectively.

Note that the specification for this conversion has changed as of Java
1.1. Prior to that release, the conversion provided a string representation
that was equivalent to the %g format of
the printf function in C. In addition, the string
representations of the infinity values, the zero values, and NaN are
not specified prior to Java 1.1.

If the type of the operand is boolean,
the value is converted to a reference to either the string literal
"true" or the string literal "false".

Java uses the StringBuffer object to implement
string concatenation. Consider the following code:

No matter how many strings are being concatenated in an expression,
the expression always produces exactly one StringBuffer
object and one String object.[3] From an efficiency
standpoint, if you concatenate more than two strings, it
may be more efficient to do so in a single expression, rather than
in multiple expressions.

[3]
Although an optimizing compiler should be smart enough to combine
multiple concatenation expressions when it is advantageous, the
compiler provided with Sun's reference implementation of Java does not do this.